Sri Lanka collapse to give India an easy win

After quite a dismal performance in the One Day International series, skipper Mahela Jayawardene decided to rattle in the changes, in order to turn the side's fortune. Rangana Herath was brought in to the side and right arm pacer Shaminda Eranga was given the chance to make his debut. Unfortunately a poor batting display from Sri Lanka made the changes go to waste.

The debutant repaid his captain's faith right at the start with a wicket in just his fourth delivery, as he got one to nip in to Gautam Gambhir (6) who attempted a casual slog across the line, only to lose his middle stump. Sri Lanka's celebration didn't last too long though, little did they know that they had actually just opened the floodgates for a Virat Kohli demolition.

Kohli walked out to bat with his usual swagger and simply continued his stunning form from the ODI Series. In an instant he made the bowling go from good to child's play and hit boundaries with such ease that it would have made even school boy bowling look better.

It required a change of pace to try and stunt the scoring and Herath's left arm orthodox turned out to be handy, as he bowled his first two overs for just nine runs. That was a big indicator of the importance of the slower bowlers on the track at Pallekele. Kohli continued to knock the ball around though and got to his maiden T20I half century in just 32 balls. Ajinkya Rahane (21), who played second fiddle in the stand with Kohli, ended up being a victim of spin as Jeevan Mendis got Rahane to spoon a catch straight back to him.

Eranga proved to be Sri Lanka's go to man in the latter half of the innings as he used the slower ball to good effect and forced Kohli in to slogging one straight down the throat of the man at deep mid-wicket. The hosts did pull things back a little after Kohli's dismissal and restricted the lower middle order by employing a line wide outside off, while keeping the length extremely full.

At the end of the halfway stage, India were found guilty of trying to play far too many big shots and in the process ignored the possibility of nudging the ball into the gaps for some quick singles. Suresh Raina scored 35 off 24 but the man in charge, M.S.Dhoni could not make optimum use of the limited time at the crease and scored 16 off 14 deliveries. As a result, the visitors failed to capitalize on their aggressive start and registered their lowest T20 total against Sri Lanka, finishing with 155 for 3.

Irfan Pathan then gave India the perfect start, as he got the new ball to swing in to the right hander quite beautifully. It was the swing that ended Tillkaratne Dilshan's (0) stint at the crease as he tried to work the ball away to the on side, but was guilty of leaving a big gap between bat and pad. Irfan then struck in his second and third over as he took out Upul Tharanga (5) and Mahela Jayawardene (26) to position himself as the highest wicket taker for India in T20Is. The former departed owing to some poor shot selection while the latter received a rather brave decision to be given leg before, with height being the only questionable aspect. Sri Lanka received an early set back with the score at 35/3 in the 5th over.

Lahiru Thirimanne and Angelo Mathews tried to resurrect the innings, but their stand ended after the duo added 33 runs. It was poor decision making again that led to the downfall of Thirimanne (20) as he tried to reverse sweep Ashwin off his first delivery, only to be bowled. Mathews too fell soon, to the bowling of Dinda for 31.

What followed was a massive collapse as Sri Lanka went from 96/5 to 116 all out. To sum it up Sri Lanka's batting was a combination of poor decision making and lack of application, a dangerous mix that inevitably leads to any team's downfall. This one off T20I summed up the hosts performance in this entire series, and it was nothing short of woeful.